Bath had to admit, devouring the tortus was the most fun he'd had in, well, forever.

Earth was a fragile place, filled with fragile lifeforms. In the beginning, I was similarly weak, constrained by all that I devoured previous...constrained by infantile, single-celled organisms.  He hated those times. Later, after Earth's fauna had developed, Bath began to mix and match physiologies, moving through the world as the most apex of predators: Bathiosaurus exorexus and the Permian extinction were evidence of this fact.

However, Bath had never experienced a serious challenge to his destructive capabilities. He had few doubts that, if he wanted to destroy all of Earth, or Illudis, he could do so in a day or two. Anything that breathed, or was permeable to air or water, was absurdly easy to destroy from the inside out.

In this sense, within his range of influence, Bath really was a god of death. Faced with the infernal size and physics-breaking healing abilities of the tortus, he actually needed to exert some serious conscious effort to destroy the monster's body and find its central nervous system.

Exerting conscious effort was, of course, complicated by his cresting hunger. Wrapping and jabbing his tendriling essence into the depths of that central nerve cluster, tasting its salty exterior while biting into its chewy, soft tissue, only made his impossibly-distracting hunger further glaring.

This...end, he thought incoherently, feral, primordial instinct driving him on to feed. As his many mouths finally reached the center of the nerve cluster, shredding through its tangy flesh, Bath's hunger skyrocketed, driving him literally insane.

Thankfully that lasted for less than a second, Bath thought a moment later, his mind already recovering from the shock of his own hunger. The space around him looked as though it had been mauled by no less than a thousand bears, their paws shearing deep into the creature's flesh. While the tortus' body no longer affected him because his appetite was sated, Bath still felt...different. Good, different; euphoric, different. This feeling is what makes humans jump off buildings because they think they can fly, Bath noted, his body gorging itself on the tortus' corpse as though on autopilot.

Instead of tempting him to jump off a building, this sensation encouraged Bath to literally eat everything 'tortus' beneath the mountain; essentially, the whole foundation of Whitesun.

I can do that, Bath thought, moving his essence over the dead, now-emulsified flesh of the tortus and drinking up its body like a spider. His dragonleaf roots used the husk as soil for growth, looking eerily like maggots as they poked through flesh. Challenge accepted. Though I must be mindful of what I'm collapsing. As he'd been doing before, he could use dragonleaf to fill any leaks he made in the tortus.

Then a thought struck him. I really need to think plans through, he groaned internally. Though I suppose I can blame the hunger for my inability to plan properly this time.

He sent a hulking section of dragonleaf up through the tortus. I should be able to reach...Whitsun's spineroot shield, established soon after Illusta's dragonleaf restructuring, extended downward through the root system of the dragonleaf. He wasn't actually sure how far the spineroot burrowed underground, but hoped it was at least a few miles.

He smiled internally, having no face to actually smile with at present. Excellent, he thought as he felt the dragonleaf from the tortus connect with the spineroot. As Bath did at the outset of making dragonleaf, he issued the plant a few directives.

Hello, little one, he said.

Hello! the little frond replied through their connection. Big, delicious.

Bath chuckled over their connection. Yes, you understand. Bring brother spineroot in on the fun.

Bath felt the dragonleaf's acquiescence through their connection. A few seconds later, the dragonleaf reopened their communications. Brother spineroot is thankful, creator, the dragonleaf transmitted reverently. Hungry, delicious, feast.

Bath smiled benevolently, though a trace of vengeful fire sparked in his eyes. Tell Brother spineroot I have a few...stipulations.

---

As the ground cracked and creaked underneath, Juserin had the distinct impression that the mountain was revolting against them. We've never had earthquakes, he lamented as the shifting of the ground caused him, once again, to lose his footing. I thought that the Church said everything was normal?

This, certainly, did not seem normal.

And where is the human leadership, hmm? Juserin wondered bitterly. I tried contacting the Knight thirty minutes ago and every five minutes since; nothing. He wondered, in horror, if this COTD occupation was secretly a genocide of the verdora people.

"Ridiculous," he seethed. They're from Earth; they couldn't possibly be anthropomorphic purists. His face paled as he recalled that COTD seemed to have what amounted to a slave class of "quasi-sapients" that served the human population as steeds, fighters, guides, among other things. Do they intend to destroy this city, then enslave us in the same way?

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"No, that wouldn't make sense..." he murmured to himself. Why bother? The Church and Dragon could easily enslave this world, or kill everyone on it. No, this must be something else.

But what?

Juserin hurried over to his recording room, assisted on both sides by young, spry servants. He still hadn't had time to make much progress on his boons, and so was affected by the precipitating earthquake more than others. He sighed with relief as they opened the door and entered.

"Thank you, now please, wait outside."

"Yes, Waymaster," the two replied as Juserin shut the door behind him.

"I wonder what I'll find," he muttered to himself, "if I replay the conversations from today."

---

Somewhere in the middle of sending the spineroot to do his bidding, Bath remembered that Lisa, Dean, and Virigard were trapped somewhere within this inner region. Since he was no longer in a rush to dispel his hunger, he decided to find them before doing anything else.

Luckily, I've seeded everywhere I've been with dragonleaf. This being the case, Bath could use the dragonleaf to sense for any oddities...such as an ovular, synthetic vehicle.

Ah, they aren't too far, Bath noted; he quickly followed the dragonleaf to their location, zipping rapidly through the small gaps in the plant's tendrils.

He arrived to find dragonleaf fruitlessly attempting to pry open the craft's cracked exterior, followed by Lisa's shouting: "Damn you, Bath."

"I came back, didn't I?" he responded cheekily, manifesting himself inside the craft. "Besides, you should be more careful when driving to avoid cracking the hull."

"That was your fault, asshole," Lisa bellowed. "Don't you remember?”

His eyes drew upwards, as though he was trying to recall such an incident. "No."

Lisa took in a deep breath, her expression venomous. "How did it taste?" she asked.

"Oh, delicious, without compare," Bath replied sonorously. "It truly lived up to its name as a trap."

"Do you have anything else to say?" she asked, strongly implying that he should.

"Hmm..."

"Bath!" Lisa chided.

His innocent expression turned devilish. "I'm playing you," he chuckled. "Yes, I remember cracking the hull," he admitted.

He crouched forward a step until he was before her face. He lifted her face with his hand by her chin, his expression complex, contemplative. "Thank you," he said at last. "I don't know if this trap would have been the death of me; I don't think it would have," he said slowly. "But--"

Lisa slapped his hand away, staring at him intently. "Don't even think about thanking me for saving you," she said with a commanding air. "It's what friends do for one another."

He gazed at her for a moment before snorting, then breaking into raucous laughter. "Of course," he said, eyes pooling with mirth.

Why does he seem...Lisa couldn't put her finger on it, but Bath seemed sad, the kind of sad that comes from revisiting memories.

"Not to ruin the moment," Dean said quietly, "but, um, I think we should get out and make sure Whitesun doesn't fall into ruin."

Virigard looked at Dean with uncharacteristic disgust. "Dean!" she side whispered, "you're ruining the moment!"

He gaped at her in response, mouthing, "What!?"

"You're right," Bath stated, his jocund expression vanishing as quickly as it came. "Come, everyone, out of the craft."

---

Juserin paused the final tape, already knowing its conclusion. He sat in place, body still, thinking over the implications of what he had just watched.

"Everything revolved around the tortus beneath the city," he said softly. "But why?" He roused himself and exited the room, his servants leading him to the salon area. He sat down on one of his cushion couches, contemplating what to do.

"If they were confronting the tortus, the quaking of the mountain would make sense...but why destroy the tortus? It's harmless! It's already reached its full size thousands of years ago; when it dies, it'll simply harden in place. Perhaps they don't understand this?"

Interrupting his train of thought was a resounding crack! that carried throughout the entire mountain. Juserin, seated on his pillow, lurched in place, nearly falling onto the floor.

"That...it feels as though...the entire mountain just dropped!?."

---

"This is so much more disgusting in person," Dean observed with a grimace. In the dark, the screen only gave us a blurry, uncolored image. Lisa's fire makes this place look like a science experiment gone horribly awry.

"It's also admittedly more...repulsive due to my interference," Bath admitted sheepishly. "In its original state, the tortus' interior looked like the interior of a mollusk."

"You did this?" Lisa balked. "Uhg, Jesus, it's like...it looks like frostbitten, maggoty flesh soup."

Bath blinked. "Does it?"

"It's pretty disgusting; thankfully the Creator made jerboas beautiful!"

Dean sighed and shook his head. "Honestly, whatever works, works, as long as this thing is dead. How much longer until we reach the second layer?"

"Not long," Lisa reported, using the shells of life forms above for reference.

"I see you've picked up a new skill," Bath observed.

"Eh, it's nothing new. I just decided to test my limits a little. I'll tell you about it later."

They soon reached the rubbery second layer, only to find it encrusted with gnarled, root-like tendrils.

"Is that...spineroot?" Lisa asked incredulously.

"It is," Bath replied, an amused expression on his face. “I decided to put it to work."

"But I thought...the tortus was delicious," she said, confused. "Don't you want to, y'know, eat it?"

"Oh, I do," Bath replied with a knowing grin. "I'm letting it eat around...oh, 10% of the tortus."

Lisa raised an eyebrow. "Uh, what?"

"I instructed it to build pillars into the bedrock below the tortus," he explained. "It's allowed to eat anything around itself. In turn, when I return to feed, I'll be able to move around much more efficiently."

Dean closed his eyes tightly. Ugh. He speaks about eating this horror-movie monstrosity like it's normal. Dean shuddered as he thought about that the tortus looked like even before Bath destroyed it further.

As they continued up, Bath instructed Dean and Lisa to make contact with the dragonleaf and spineroot around them, using their landshaper boons (and in Lisa's case, kursi abilities) to sense the growth of the two plants through the Tortus' cortex. The three of them directed the dragonleaf up and out, filling in obvious gaps that might lead to structural instability.

Soon, after traveling for a few more minutes, the party of four finally reached the surface.

"I never thought I'd be so happy to see the sun," Virigard chirped merrily.

Dean looked over to give her an amused look. When he turned back...

"Damn it," he cursed, punching out a fist. Due to moderate investment in the administrator path, his fist emitted a concussive force that broke the ground with a satisfying thud. "They're gone."